The Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet search giant, in a response to the E.U. advisory group, conceded that it would cut the time it retains personal search data to 18 months from the 18-24 month range it previously kept the data for. U.S. laws may in the future require that Google raise this time period to 24 months again, the company warned.

Google also complained of the "tremendous confusion in legal circles across Europe" regarding the E.U.'s privacy laws, citing vague terminology in E.U. rules and varying maximum times for data retention across the E.U.'s 27 countries, to name a few. The company called on Brussels to clarify its privacy and data retention rules once and for all.

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June 12, 2007 06:54 ET (10:54 GMT)

"There are many unanswered questions regarding" E.U. data protection laws, said Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer in his six-page response to the so-called Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which is made up of privacy watchdogs from all E.U. countries and backed by the European Commission.

Google used to retain personal data for "as long as it was useful," Fleischer has said. In March the company said it would instead make anonymous its search records after 18 to 24 months by eliminating the last set of numbers in the Internet-protocol address of the computer which made the search query.

The E.U.'s demand that Google justify its data retention practices was a response to the new policy, though Google says this was meant to bring Google in line with new privacy laws around the world. Google also said it consulted with privacy advocates and regulators in both the E.U. and the U.S. before changing its policy.

E.U. data privacy laws vary throughout the bloc and Brussels has yet to "set forth any specific periods beyond which personal data may not be retained," Fleischer said.

Keeping data and search history on users improves the quality of the search engine by helping it recognize misspellings, offering users alternative search terms and fighting unsolicited e-mail, or spammer, abuse, Google says. Retaining Internet search data for a certain time period is also key for security and law enforcement officials and is required by the U.S. and other countries around the world, Google added in its response to the E.U.

"We also firmly reject any suggestions that we could meet our legitimate interests in security, innovation and anti-fraud efforts with any retention period shorter than 18 months," Fleischer wrote in his letter.

The company will look to revamp the threads of computer coding known as "cookies" it uses to cater to user preferences, Google said. E.U. privacy authorities had complained that Google's cookies remain valid for an unnecessarily long time - about 30 years. The company is "exploring ways to redesign cookies and to reduce their expiration" without forcing users to repeatedly input "basic preferences such as language," Fleischer writes.

E.U. officials were not immediately available to comment on Google's letter.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

June 12, 2007 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)

The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party will likely wait until at least October 2007 to decide whether Google has violated European privacy laws, an official from the group said last month. The group meets again at the end of this month.

The attack on Google's privacy practices is the most recent in a string of legal woes Google has faced across the globe. Google was sued last year by Belgian-, French- and German-language copyright watchdog Copiepresse which charged that by displaying its members' copyrighted articles without payment and permission, Google had broken Belgian law.

Copiepresse won its case, but Google said it plans to appeal the decision.

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